SAFETY AT WORK
The employer is responsible for ensuring that industrial trucks, their equipment, and all safety devices required for operation undergo periodic inspections. Therefore, industrial trucks must be regularly inspected for any damage caused by aging, wear, corrosion, and other factors.
REGULATORY
On May 15, 2008, Legislative Decree 81, the “Consolidated Law on Safety,” came into force, repealing the old Legislative Decrees 626 and Presidential Decree 547. The new Legislative Decree 81/2008, concerning the protection of health and safety in the workplace, expressly establishes the employer's duty to maintain machinery at efficiency and safety levels, in compliance with the instructions provided by the manufacturer in the Use and Maintenance Manual.
This entails a change in the legal obligations for maintenance and periodic checks of internal handling equipment.
FINALITÀ
The employer must ensure that industrial trucks and their equipment, as well as all safety devices required for operation, are periodically inspected. Industrial trucks must therefore be inspected to identify damage due to aging, wear, corrosion, and other causes.
Identifying all these factors requires specific knowledge, such as that required of an expert who, based on professional training and experience, has sufficient knowledge of vehicle technology and familiarity with national regulations to be able to assess the safety status of material handling vehicles.
PERFORMANCE OF CHECKS
Forklifts and their accessory equipment must be inspected at least once a year, or more frequently if necessary due to their durability, operating conditions, and workplace conditions, in order to assess their state of preservation and efficiency.
The Operation and Maintenance Manual supplied with the cart takes precedence over everything else.
There are special cases for which, in the absence of specific instructions from the manufacturer, specific periodic checks are required (e.g., chains). For these and other reasons, the checks must be performed by expert technicians, and the results of the tests must be documented.
ISPESL PERIODIC CONTROL
The ISPESL (or INAIL) Guidelines define the protocol according to which specific safety checks on forklifts must be performed.

During the inspection, the (qualified) technician performs a safety inspection on the forklift and updates the ISPESL inspection booklet with any reports of unsafe conditions on the vehicle.
